SKELGEN · Establishment of a cross continent consortium for enhancing regenerative medicine in skeletal tissues

Regenerative medicine (RM) is a critical need to establish in this century, in order to raise quality of life and reduce the cost of healthcare in our increasing aged populations. To do this there is a need for key research teams within and outside the EU to develop meaningful research collaborations and relationships at an institutional level. skelGEN brings together leading research institutions across disciplines in biology/engineering/computational modelling/orthopaedic research in the EU (UK, the Netherlands, Portugal) partnered with complementary experts in New Zealand. This collaboration will allow EU partner institutions to work in a coordinated way to address RM in the human skeleton, including bones, cartilage and tendons/ligaments. This work will range from basic science through to translational medicine and involves world experts, emerging scientists as well as young researchers.The programme of exchanges and knowledge transfer is built around four main scientific themes that will feed into each other, to pursue of skelGEN’s long term mission successfully. These themes are centred on stem cells, scaffolds and medical devices, computerised modelling and overall evaluation. Advances in stem cell therapy are required, such as pluripotent stem cells that do not have the political and ethical concerns of embryonic stem cell populations. Dynamic scaffolds need to respond to their environment and can integrate bioactive factors, using biocompatible biomaterials e.g. producing hybrid constructs of titanium rods and bulk polymers, self-assembling short peptides etc. to create better tissue/implant interfaces powerful for potential new therapies in RM. We plan to use computational modelling to assist in the tissue engineering of scaffolds and cells/tissues in vitro and in vivo. Finally we will endeavour to standardise the evaluation techniques used to assess the biocompatibility of these future medical devices.